Sprinklings of history, a smidgen of genealogy, a dash of art & a dusting of architecture, all mixed together with my eccentric fascinations

02 October 2014

England: Nether Alderley, Cheshire

The
first time we went looking for Alderley Edge we couldn’t find it. Although I
generally think the road signage in the UK is good, many signs are obscured
by overgrown foliage in the late summer, and I have found during this trip that
places of interest are sometimes poorly marked. Suffice to say that, although
we looked hard and actually went round in a big circle, we couldn’t find the
Edge.

We
did, however, find the amazing ancient Church of St Mary’s
in Nether Alderley. Nether
here means ‘lower’ – one of the fascinations of English place names is their
use of words like ‘nether’, ‘mickle’, ‘over’, ‘lower’ and ‘much’, to name just
a few, to explain the position of one place relative to another. Nether here is
used to distinguish Nether Alderley from Over Alderley, which is at a higher
elevation. Oh, and one inane factoid that I found while researching Nether
Alderley on Wikipedia – Posh and Becks used to have a home there, back in the
days when he played for Man U.

But I
digress … St Mary’s is a 14th-century church, though it’s likely a wooden
church occupied the site prior to the stone one being built. And the original
church has been added to, with the tower being constructed in 1530, and other
additions and alterations following through the centuries, as the plan below
shows.

The old school with its wonderful maker's inscription

Unfortunately,
we weren’t able to enter – so many churches are locked these days to prevent
vandalism – but the outside was a picture in itself. Graves surrounded the
building, with many of the oldest gravestones lying flat on the ground, as I’ve
seen in some other old Cheshire
churchyards, and some dated back to the 1600s. There’s a statuesque 1200-year-old
yew tree growing amongst the graves and in one corner of the property there sits an
Elizabethan school building – now the parish hall, but used as a school until
1908.

Just
along the road from the church is an old mill, a National Trust property which
was not open the first time we passed this way (in 2014 it’s only open on
Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays) so we pencilled that in for our return visit.

On my last
day in Cheshire
we set out once more, this time armed with maps and instructions scribbled down
from the website, to find the elusive Alderley Edge and, on the way, returned
to Nether Alderley Mill. This time, it was open and we enjoyed a guided tour of the mill,
with a volunteer guide and the miller both explaining how the place worked. You
would never guess from the road that there’s quite a large body of water
sitting in a dam behind the mill. It was created to supply the mill with water
and has an island in it on which the local lord of the manor used to have a big
house. I say ‘used to have’ because the lord of the manor is long gone and so
is his big house – it burnt down – and now the smaller house that replaced it
is privately owned so hidden away from inquisitive eyes. A very picturesque place to live, I’m sure.

The
mill grinds corn, mostly bran, but also wheat and barley, and was built to
fulfil the estate owner’s obligation to provide somewhere for his tenants to
have their grain ground to get the flour they needed to make bread.

The
mill has two wheels, unusually – possibly uniquely – working together to
provide the energy to power the mill stones, which are actually called burr
stones and come from France.
These are used instead of ordinary stone as their grinding together doesn’t
give off the small particles of stone which, in previous centuries, would have
caused dental problems for those eating rather gritty bread.

It was
fascinating hearing and seeing how all the bits of the mill work. Being somewhat
technically challenged, I can understand much more easily something I can
actually see working – the wheels revolving, the gears turning, the pulleys
pulling, etc.

From
there we went to Alderley Edge, finding it easily this time thanks to the
easy-to-follow instructions of the mill guide. It’s called The Edge because
it’s basically a huge ridge of sandstone that sticks up from the surrounding
countryside. Not surprisingly, you get panoramic views from a couple of rocky
outcrops along the top of the escarpment where the woodland trees don’t obscure
the outlook. There are various trails, two of which we followed, all of which
were very poorly signposted, like the place itself. Luckily, I took a photo of
the signboard, which we kept referring back to, or we could easily have got
lost.

There
are some remains of mining and farming cottages but most are merely ‘here is
the site of …’ rather than anything concrete to see. The woodland was lovely –
Scots pine and beech, and other very old trees that may once have marked
ancient footpaths or field boundaries, but the place as a whole didn’t really
live up to our expectations.

One bonus from our visit: I got a good pub sign photo right outside the park entrance – the Wizard of Edge,
named for a local legend which first appeared in print in an 1805 edition of the Manchester Mail. It is a strange tale of
a man with a horse to sell who meets a wizard with a great army living
underground. Intrigued? If you’re sitting comfortably, you can read the story here.

About Me

I am a writer and photographer; project
manager and English teacher; knitter and genealogist; fungi forayer and bird
watcher; countryside rambler and city strider; volunteer and child sponsor; tree
lover and cat person; researcher and blogger; nemophilist; and traveller.